9 Lucrative Finance Jobs Growing in Demand

Many job hunters are looking for flexible work arrangements, but for others, job stability is the most important factor as this can help fund long-term goals such as buying a home, starting a family and planning for retirement. In fact, compensation and benefits outranked work-life balance as job seekers' top priority as of June 2021, according to a new report from SmartAsset, a fintech company. To identify the most stable and lucrative jobs, SmartAsset researchers analyzed data across the 790 occupations delineated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, filtering for those with greater than 10% projected growth in employment over the next 10 years. Forty-two high-paying jobs met that criterion. In addition, they considered only occupations with 2021 average earnings above $68,590 — the 75th percentile of annual earnings nationally. For the final ranking of high-paying occupations, they compared jobs across the metrics of expected percentage growth in employment and expected growth in number of workers in 10 years; 2021 average earnings; and four-year change in earnings from 2017 to 2021. They gave equal weight to each one, and derived an average. The research found that nationally, the total workforce is expected to grow by 5.3% from 2021 to 2031, though this figure is significantly larger for some occupations than others. Business and financial occupations now outrank life, physical and social science jobs, a turnaround from last year's iteration of the study, according to the research. And although remote work is increasingly popular, many of the top occupations require in-person schedules, including nurse practitioners and physician assistants. See the gallery for the nine highest-paying business and financial occupations.